The Study of Flight
by Padfoot Reincarnated
Summary: Or, how Hermione found the ground. Hermione/Viktor, EWE, fluff.


**Hermione/Viktor is one of the only het pairings I have been able to get into, for some reason, but there isn't nearly enough. Especially since they are adorable and kind of perfect. So this is my contribution; I hope you enjoy it! Obviously, not epilogue compliant. And I don't own Harry Potter. Also, this is FLUFF to a high degree.**

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><p>They meet up again the morning after the Yule Ball, when she's on her way to the library. She doesn't much want to see Ron, anyway. It's early, and she's washed the potion from her hair, and the make-up from her face, and her robes are soft and normal and she is herself again.<p>

This, perhaps, is why she blushes so painfully red when he sees her. But he's shy, as well.

"You left so suddenly last night," he says, his thoughts stumbling a little over his heavy accent. "I wondered if maybe-"

"I'm sorry," she says, clutching her books in front of her chest. The robes she's wearing have been crumpled in a ball on the floor for at least a week, and they're rumpled and dusty, and she knows her hair is a mess, and...

He steps closer, and takes her hand. She drops her books. She can barely breathe.

"Don't apologize," he says. "Only, I didn't get to kiss you good night."

"Oh," she says. He's close, and she feels dizzy. "Oh."

She knows what's going to happen before it comes, and she has to fight the urge to run. This isn't in books, and no matter what she's overheard from Parvati and Lavender's nighttime gossip she doesn't know how to-she isn't ready to-she-

His lips, once, soft, gentle, close. The smell of his cologne, and his hand on her waist.

He's smiling at her as he pulls away, but he's still so close, and she knows she must be grinning like an idiot.

"Oh," he echoes, teasing, and she loses track of the ground as he pulls her in again.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

_I have heard some of what you have been through in the past year, and I would like to repeat the same invitation which I have offered many times before. You know what my feelings are. But I can put them aside if that is what you prefer. Believe me when I say that my deepest wish for you is that you find peace._

He is articulate in writing as he cannot be in speech. And the descriptions he paints are so inviting-mountains and lakes and air that isn't tainted like Britain's is for her, now.

So she goes to him.

He's waiting alone for her when she Portkeys in, and she sees him step back, as if she's struck him, when she arrives. Then she realizes that she is pointing her wand at him defensively, and glaring murder.

"Habit," she says, as she pockets it.

"I see," he says. He takes her hand, and she lets him, but she keeps her other hand in her pocket tight around her wand.

He has a house at the foot of the Balkan Mountains. There is a Quidditch pitch out back, and it smells of wood and feathers. She leans back in the grass by the lake while he is making dinner, and pretends for a moment that this is her life. Her fingers loosen a little around the wand, but she can't let go, and when she closes her eyes it's as if she's back in the woods with Ron and Harry, running for her life.

It was silly to think he could make her forget.

Her bed is soft and comfortable, but she can't sleep, that first night. Even though she knows she's safe, she can't help running over the wards she should have put up, the enchantments she should have laid. Her breath is racing and her mind is whirling even faster when he opens the door. Just as quickly, she's on her feet and ready to curse him.

He stares at her for a moment, glowering. "I want to kill whoever did this to you," he says.

Her resolve fades and her hand sinks to her side. "He's already dead," she tells him.

He walks the few steps to her and she can tell it is taking every ounce of courage he has even to approach her. "In that case," he says, "Be brave."

Her heart is thundering and her mind is wailing as she slowly lowers her wand to rest on the bed.

She thinks, _I'll let him kiss me_, but he doesn't. He hugs her, though, and weaves his fingers through her hair.

"That's the girl I remember," he says.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

It isn't logical, after all she's been through, to be afraid of a silly _broomstick. _She's flown on the back of a _dragon_, for goodness sake. But whenever she finds herself more than ten feet off the ground, she finds her knees shaking and her hands jerking, and her breath comes in quakes and quivers.

Riding with Viktor shouldn't make things any easier. He flies like a madman; she's seen him. He dives towards the ground as if he doesn't see it, and laughs as he pulls away.

Still, she lets him pull her onto a broom in front of her. She feels his arms around her waist with every shuddering breath she takes, and his hands are confident enough to stop hers from shaking.

She screams as they swoop low, and her toes skim the grass, and somewhere her terror transforms into delight. He laughs deep and low behind her, and she feels it in her own chest. It's like being fourteen again, before Horcruxes and Voldemort and growing up.

It's magic she can't quantify, explain, or analyze away. It's magic like getting her first wand, feeling it hot and sparking in her fingers. It's magic like her fatherr's face slowly lighting with recognition when she'd found them both in Australia, after. It's the swooping sensation in her stomach when Viktor kisses the side of her neck, and she feels his lips smiling open against her cheek.

It's magic, and it isn't just flight.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

He's been coming to her room every night since she came to Bulgaria. She isn't sure what it means that she falls asleep in his arms without ever touching his lips. But she is waiting for him that last night, and she wants to be brave.

His mouth is already open when he comes through the door, but she cuts him off him, "I want to kiss you. And don't think this means I'm in love with your or that I can be. But I want to. So."

He shuts the door behind him and leans against it.

"Don't do it for me, Hermione," he says. And it suddenly occurs to her that he's pronouncing her name correctly, and that he isn't stumbling or stammering, and that makes her certain. She stands up and strides towards him and she doesn't even know where her wand is. She doesn't even care.

"Don't be stupid," she says, pressing her body to his.

"Around you? Never."

And this time it's her kissing him. It isn't like her first kiss. It isn't flying, and it isn't weightless. It is heavy, and tethering, and coming to the ground. It's swaying a little as he catches her lip, and her eyes sliding closed of their own accord. It is falling with someone there to catch her.

It is being brave enough, finally, to touch the earth, and walk.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading! I'd love it if you'd share your thoughts with me. Also known as reviewing. AKLSJD can count as a thought, I suppose, if you don't care to be more coherent. In any case, have a lovely day, and happy reading.<strong>


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